It is my understanding that the primary purpose of this bill is to “allow the intelligence services to conduct surveillance of communications between persons located outside of the United States when the communications happen to pass through domestic networks”. With this bill the NSA can go up the road to AT&T and run a wiretap program to monitor the phone call between Osama in Pakistan and a suicide bomber in London. Without this bill the NSA or CIA has to get the cooperation of Pakistan or England to install the wiretap program in their countries. Several years ago a federal judge ruled that his court had jurisdiction over this area even though it involves communications that would not normally be under his jurisdiction because the router is located in the United States. This bill was designed to satisfy the requirements of the court and address the challenges posed by technological advancements. The legal jurisdiction of wiretaps was so much simpler to explain twenty years ago. The bill does not authorize monitoring internal communications within the United States. Monitoring internal communications within the United States falls under the jurisdiction of federal wiretap laws and the FBI.
